Netsky-P tops virus charts - again

Malware's Dark Side of the Moon

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Sophos’ latest malware top ten shows W32 Netsky-P and W32.Zafi-B battling it out for top spot.

Two-year old Netsky-P took the top spot for April, up from second place in March. In doing this, it swapped places with Zafi-B, which is itself 22 moths old. The two accounted for 18.5 per cent and 16.5 per cent of reports. Nyxem-D was in third place with 8.5 per cent.

The firm said email viruses and worms were declining as a proportion of malware. Trojans accounted for 86 per cent of threats reported last month, and are perceived as a much greater threat to security. Sophos added that 28 per cent of reported threats were designed to allow a third party to access a computer remotely, which it says indicates a focus on financial or data theft.

Still, the firm found time to say it’s “astonishing” that Netsky-P is still the dark star performer after more than two years, and it placed the blame on users’ paying insufficient attention to protecting their systems. Or, put another way, “buy our products, buy our products”.